Sherol’s 2021: Some Stuff I Did
"The mark of a master is to select only a few moments but give us a lifetime"
I once made a deal that if my life had stories to tell, that I would tell them. I haven’t been keeping up my end of the bargain, I think, because I haven’t had the mindspace (or maybe I’m losing my flair, maybe I’m just growing up, maybe a little of both...haha). Life can often feel like treading water, but having hope is believing we’re treading towards land - I can’t wait to experience what solid “land” feels like.
I used to write so much because things are so complicated that I struggled to find simple explanations. At this point in life, I have much more to say than ever before (but with much more hindsight and rigor than I’ve had). Likely, I’m a very different person than when you last knew me. Mostly, I’ve had a lot to learn (implying that I’ve been plenty foolish in the past) and am simply grateful to have made it (not just this year, but through my life so far).
My main site (sherolchen.com) hasn’t been touched since 2015 (5+ years), and I am overdue to refactor what I’m about now. This is all being staged at sherol.org (do you think I should buy the .com? - eh, seems narcissistic to care so much as to hand over the $ to a squatter). This site you are on now will be my regular updates (sherol.substack.com), as I stopped using Facebook earlier this year. My Twitter (@ffpaladin) will be mostly AI Research related, and I’ll try to partition my work/writings into subpages (since I realize the people interested in technology may not care about my spiritual life and vice versa).
If I could pick a thing or two of what’s changed the most for me, well (1) I developed a keen appreciation for squirrels, and (2) I no longer feel the need to network and meet people (which is a shock even to me), and as such (3) I’ve been less engaged and attentive to people (aka really bad at staying in touch). If anything’s the same I’m still kind of “extra” as you can tell by what I’ve written so far (lol). To cherry pick some things for 2021, here’s list of lists:
3 Things that happened:
Stadia Research Sunset - Maybe you’ve heard of Stadia? It’s Google’s Cloud Gaming platform. I had the privilege of working on Stadia Research since pre their launch in 2019. In 2021, they cut the Entertainment Studio (including Research). With a bit of hustle, we transitioned a subset of the group to Google Research to continue working on improving AI/ML. Here’s some of the work there.
Finally turned in the paperwork to remove the ABD from my PhD. While I had defended my thesis years ago, I hadn’t filed the paperwork, mostly because I was already in research full time. Here’s the latest version: AUTHORIAL LEVERAGE: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR NARRATIVE AND STORYTELLING
In July, I was in the NY Times on “Can Silicon Valley Find God.” I got interviewed for an editorial piece on AI and faith. I noticed that they called me Ms. Chen (they never asked what level of education I had), which I shrugged off until I was told by others that I need to stand up for my credentials. It does not seem to cost them much to make the change, but I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle (although I do think more representation of women in AI is for the better). Any thoughts on what you would do in this case? This is the response I got:
per the style guide, they only use Dr. for people who are working in academia or research - which to be honest, I think applies to you, but they didn't think it was enough to make the change since we already use your title at google. In any future versions of this work I will be sure to address you as Dr.!
3 Books I put on Amazon:
24 Part Workbook on orienting yourself around your goals and Passions. These are exercises and templates I’ve used to get a sense of where I was headed in life. It turns out that putting a book up on Amazon is not hard at all, so I’ve been working on this workbook since 2019. This is the 3rd edition, and it’s made a world of a difference for me.
100 Day Prayer/Mindfulness Journal. Between this and the first one, this was even more of a game changer for me. The pandemic created so much uncertainty that I relied on filling out these sheets everyday to get myself going (and filled 3 books so far). It got me through some rough patches, and I continue to refer to this journal as my “prayer receipts.”
Passion Talks 2021, Conference Proceedings. It amazes me that Passion Talks persisted year after year (for over a decade). While it’s still in this uncomfortable space between religion/spirituality and our intellectual/passion pursuits, every year we continue to try new things, seeking breakthrough and understanding. Personally, I’ve had enough of the echo chambers, and I love finding and working with people who tirelessly do what they love with excellence and integrity, regardless of the status quo. I hope that Passion Talks can continue to enable dialog through its earnestness and authenticity. One of my favorite projects to date is Academic Bridges, where we reached across the world to connect with the like-passioned young leaders in Mozambique and Morocco.
3 Faith Talks I gave:
Priorities in Faith and Work [slides] - I gave this talk for Connect.SV, not long after January 6th, still a bit shook by the directions given by some pretty prominent leaders from the Evangelical communities. The topic was on what we consider the “Greatest Commandment.” I had started reading a history book on the first 3000 years of Christianity, out of a desire to (as Pastor Cue from Skidrow Church put it) “decolonize” my theology. It’s really hip in churches to talk about the Greek concept of ekklesia as church, but according to the historian, church is a derivative of “kingdom,” while ekklesia is a derivative of “metropolis.” In our pursuit for the Greatest Commandment to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves, we’ve built an authority structure around this concept of “kingdom.” Whereas the foundational society that Ancient Greece laid, one of citizenship, representation, and democracy, is what this term, ekklesia, represented. These concepts of kingdom and metropolis seem somewhat opposed, and I’m curious to investigate how much we’ve veered off course.
Exploring Faith [slides] - My VP’s research org hosts a monthly talk series on “Real Life” topics. I timidly asked the project lead whether I could give a talk about God, wondering if it would stir offense, but also believing that if anyone could give this talk (without stirring offense), I could. It was within a week or so of the NY Times article coming out (which I could not have anticipated giving such credibility to my chosen topic). I carefully talked about my faith journey, what it meant for my identity (citing some amazing C.S. Lewis along the way), and why it matters. My reporting chain, teammates, and collaborators listened in, and when it was all over, they said it was “beautiful.”
Using Passion as Your Compass [slides] - Towards the end of the year, I was asked to give a talk for the launching of a Business program at Redeemer University. I had turned down most of my speaking requests this past year, but I was more than happy to come alongside a friend as they build out higher education. When I finished writing this talk, I realized that an alternate (simpler) title could’ve been: “Don’t be basic.” It’s a combination of the first two talks, with added history of this past century as we evolved from focusing on intelligence to self-fulfillment to attention-economy to (what I believe is a next major focus) spirituality. Namely, I touch upon the need for spiritual literacy and maturity as we anticipate the impact of technologies on the horizon.
In conclusion, my life still feels like a pile of disconnected stuff, although more impactful stuff that’s hopefully treading towards land. I’ve been in survival mode my entire life, and should take a moment to be grateful for the stability and safety that I’ve found myself with. Still, I am so habituated towards opportunity-vigilance, that I can’t figure out how to not feel perpetually tired. At the same time, to have wearily made it here, I feel I must be unstoppable (haha). Although, since it wasn’t some great plan I had to get here, I can hardly take the credit for what I’m doing now nor the possibilities for where I will go next.
As I wrestle with feeling tired, yet unstoppable, I want to focus on being 3 things for 2022:
Insignificant - Even as detached as I’ve gotten, I still think I care too much about what others think. I’d like to be the type of person so sold out on the better world that’s possible, that I wouldn’t waste a second thinking about what I’m getting out of it.
Excellent - I’m learning more and more about what it means to take joy in doing things well. It doesn’t mean that I find my value in how well I do things, but that in my brokenness and incompetence, things can get done better than they had been.
Unoffendable - I met a pastor earlier this year that talked about being unoffendable, and I realized that this is something I want. I think my love language is to be understood, which also means I hate being misunderstood. Time to up that tolerance.
Things to check out in 2022:
David Gibbons - That pastor I mentioned above is pretty great. I had this moment thinking, “I don’t think I’m ever going to do better than this, pastor-wise.” I’ve been streaming his church, Newsong (a home for the “misfits,”) and have taken a look at a couple of his books.
Monterey Jazz Festival - After a lifelong passion for jazz and 10+ years volunteering for MJF (which you can read about here), this upcoming jazz festival is going to be AMAZING. We are collaborating with people across tech to bridge the legacy of this jazz fest with the future of music (which includes, not only technology, but justice and equity as well). We’ve been able to generate sponsorship and partnerships for what I feel is going to be so good - so, SAVE THE DATE!
Intellectual Faith - I definitely want to keep writing, mostly to explore how our intellectual pursuits and our spirituality go hand in hand. This is how I currently plan to partition my writing:
sherol.substack.com - my newsletter / general updates
expressive.substack.com - writings on AI and technology
heaven.substack.com - religion & spirituality
itisthatdeep.com (complicated.substack.com) - general musings
Finally, some papers I’ve been reading about AI:
What Will it Take to Fix Benchmarking in Natural Language Understanding? [PDF]
"What We Can’t Measure, We Can’t Understand": Challenges to Demographic Data Procurement in the Pursuit of Fairness [PDF]
Room-Across-Room: Multilingual Vision-and-Language Navigation with Dense Spatiotemporal Grounding [PDF] [Dataset]
Learning to Speak and Act in a Fantasy Text Adventure Game [PDF] [Parlai] [Blog]
Thanks for sharing Sherol! Still a vivid memory when you visit Google Philippines years ago. And thanks for the Google mini you gave as a gift. I hope you are keeping well and you realize your 2022 goals ♥️ - Michelle from PH
This was wonder-ful, Sherol. You epitomize G.K. Chesterton's quote: "The world will never starve for want of wonderS--but only for want of WONDER" And, to paraphrase Francis of Assisi, pray that I too would seek to understand (others) more than to be understood (by others). Sounds like that's God's theme (aim?) for us in 2022. Happy New Year glorifying/enjoying God! PASTOR DOUG